The Galanter's Kitchen

This soup or stew is popular across Azerbaijan and some parts of exUSSR. Traditionally, piti is cooked in individual pots, but I made only two portion in a small saucepan. Original recipe says: first the juice from the stew is poured over pieces of old bread and they are eaten together with some raw onion and sumac. The meat, chestnuts and chickpeas are then tipped onto the plate, mashed together with more sumac and raw onion. We ate it like any other soup, maybe it’s not authentic but sure tasty. In modern recipes potato is used as well as chestnuts, so I used both.

Put meat in a saucepan, add 4 cups water and bay leaf, bring to the boil. Skim off scum as it rises. Cover and simmer for about one hour or until the meat is literally falling off the bones. Cut meat in small pieces. Add potatoes, cook about 15 minutes more. Add chopped tomato, chickpeas, prunes, cumin, thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Bring to boil, cover, turn heat off and let soup stay about half hour. Serve hot with chopped cilantro on top. Or with chopped dill and garlic, like our.

To low fat and calories I made lamb broth day before, cool it and discard all hard fat pieces from the broth top.